a state-run news agency by any other name…

First, it was Armstrong Williams. Now, it’s Maggie Gallagher. One wonders where it will end, and just how many columnists have been taking money from the Bush administration to energetically champion their policies. Here’s a clip from today’s Washington Post:

In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush’s push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.

“The Bush marriage initiative would emphasize the importance of marriage to poor couples” and “educate teens on the value of delaying childbearing until marriage,” she wrote in National Review Online, for example, adding that this could “carry big payoffs down the road for taxpayers and children.”

But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president’s proposal.

While we’re on the subject of skirting ethical boundaries and using deceptive means to sway public opinion, you might want to check out this post at Metafilter, where someone has identified over half a dozen identical defenses of Ashlee Simpson which sprung up in on-line music forums after the “singer” got booed off the stage by 70,000 people during the halftime show at a football game… The lesson? You don’t have to buy people, when you can create them.